


De Profundis

by MollyC



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Gen, Hell, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2580005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyC/pseuds/MollyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You go to Hell because you're ordered to.  You find him there because you can't do anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	De Profundis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/gifts).
  * Inspired by [It's the Stars That Lie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033814) by [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/pseuds/seperis). 



> This will probably make no sense _at all_ unless you've read both current parts of ["Down to Agincourt"](http://archiveofourown.org/series/110651), and to really get the nuance you should probably read the comments on Chapter 6 of _It's the Stars that Lie_.
> 
> I know, but I accidentally meta and what are you gonna do?

Here, there are only two kinds of entities.

There are your siblings, who you don’t need to hesitate to avoid; you all know your roles and you know how to execute them.  There’s no risk of catching a comrade with a misaimed strike, because you are none of you capable of misaiming.  And aside from them, there are only demons.

Therefore, everything you encounter, you may destroy.

And you do.  The garrison whirls through Hell like a wavefront.  Beside you Uriel’s wrath is glorious, though privately you think it’s for the sheer pleasure of the fighting, not for the goal.  (You don’t entirely approve, but it’s not your place to monitor Uriel’s purity of purpose, and besides you wouldn’t send any of your siblings to the Guides unless it were a question of outright blasphemy.)   Senachiel fights with the elegant grace you have always admired; Hester and Inias complement each other perfectly.

The demons have been fighting a retreat since your forces breached the Gates, and they know it; it’s only a matter of how long they can continue to hide their prize.  It’s made harder for them because some of you can sense him, no matter how they try to obscure the traces, and each time you come to a place where the Righteous Man stopped, you obliterate it so that they can’t double back on their trail.

It’s been quite some time since his screams ceased to be audible, and you all know what that means. The shock of the First Seal’s breaking rang through your Grace like the chime of a rotten bell, the dissonance nearly painful.  But that only makes it more urgent to find the Righteous Man and raise him; he’s the only one who can end it now, and the longer he wields his knife here the harder it will be to bring him back to himself enough to do what he must.

The demons can’t stand against you strategically, but sometimes, on a small scale, they gain an advantage.  First you and a few of the others are separated from the rest of the garrison, and then you emerge from a knot of demonic forms and realize that you’ve lost Uriel and Inias, Ziphius, Hester and Jophiel.  You’re alone.

But your sense of the Righteous Man is still strong, and from the looks of it the demonic forces are concentrated in that direction, which is a...good sign, in its way.  You take a moment to concentrate on healing your minor wounds, but only a moment; you have no time to waste.

There are rather more demons than you were expecting. 

You try to find it encouraging.  This level of resistance can only mean that you’re close to your goal.  It’s difficult; your connection to Heaven grows more attenuated with every advance you make, and the demons opposing you only grow stronger.  If the garrison were at your back, you could overwhelm them, but alone you have no one to give you cover and no time to do anything but fight.  It would probably be prudent to fall back, find some of your comrades, return in greater strength.

You find you can’t make yourself do it.  The Righteous Man is close, and you can’t turn aside.  You accumulate more wounds, and some of them are _not_ minor, but you don’t dare pause to heal them.  You don’t dare do anything but fight.  You think, in the calm center of your mind, that you might not even notice if the Morningstar appeared before you; you think you’d simply attack if the archangel dared to bar your way, though you'd die for it.  You pay no attention to how long you fight, but it’s long enough that you fall into a trance of strike and dodge and feint and block that feels eternal.

Until suddenly, there are no more demons, and you emerge from your daze as the last of the empty shells slides from your blade, already beginning to melt back into the fabric of Hell from which it took its form.  Behind you, you can hear the Hordes rallying, and you know your time is limited before they realize where you are, but that doesn’t matter.  What matters is the Righteous Man.

Hell warps itself to what its inhabitants expect, and the Righteous Man is one of those inhabitants now, so the space in which you find yourself is something like a cavern, something like an industrial building.  The rack in the center of the room is an iron cross and the chains that drape it are spiked, but there is no soul bound there.  The Righteous Man stands nearby, inspecting a table covered in the implements of pain, and when you make a sound he turns, falling into a ready crouch with a knife upraised.

You sheathe your weapon.

“Fear not,” you say, and spread your hands out, open and empty.  The Righteous Man winces at the sound of your voice.  “I am your deliverance, Dean.”

“Who are you?” he demands.  He still looks recognizably as his physical body did in life, but you’re sickened by the way his soul has twisted.  His face would be beautiful if it were not merciless; flames burn deep in his eyes and his skin is a smooth metallic bronze.  His fingers taper into short, brutal claws.  And he has wings, covered in skin rather than feathers—but you know they will never bear him.  Of all the things your Fallen siblings did to the demons they formed, inflicting the parody of wings on them was the most cruel.  Still, he’s magnificent, and you wonder how much effort your siblings have expended in keeping him from realizing that he could conquer Hell with barely a thought.

“I am Castiel, and I’m here to take you home.”

He makes a derisive sound.  “I am home,” he replies.  “Get out.”  He doesn’t move, but you can tell by his stance that he’s ready to meet any attack.

“You don’t belong here, Dean,” you say.

“Alistair,” he says sharply, scowling.  “I’m Alistair, and don’t you forget it.”  His fingers work on the hilt of his knife, shifting for a better grip.

“No, you’re not.”

“I am.  I have to be.”  His eyes stutter away from yours for the first time.  “There’s nothing else left.”

“But _you can have it back_.  Alistair is not your name, and this is not all you are, and Dean,” you say, wishing fruitlessly for the eloquence that you, a soldier, were never granted. “I know that they said it was destroyed, but _they lie._ ”

You are no expert at reading humans, and the Righteous Man is not yet so warped as to show emotion as the Fallen do, but you think he looks uncertain.  Outside the incongruous quiet of this space, you can hear the howls growing closer.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what you lost, when you said yes,” you say.  “I swear by my Father that you can have it back.”

“By your Father,” he says, his voice dripping with scorn.  “Sure, let’s say I believe that.  What do I have to do for it?”

“You know that, too,” you say.

Silence falls between you.  “And if I do that,” he says.  “If I go back, you could...I know you know what I’ve been doing.  If I go back—”

“I could,” you agree.  His burning eyes narrow.  “But I won’t.”

You don’t dare look away from him, though the silence stretches to agony and the shrieks behind you grow dangerously closer.  His wings shift restlessly, rasping against each other.  You watch his posture change, and for a moment, you’re certain that he’s going to attack.  You’re weary enough that he might even manage to kill you before you can subdue him.  As long as he remains Alistair’s apprentice, he draws power from this place that is inimical to your very nature.

His chin comes up and he straightens, letting the knife fall.  “Even if you do, that’s better.”  The last word chokes off into a strangled cry as the blade buries itself in the floor and the Righteous Man collapses, barely catching himself on one fist.

You cross the room quick as thought, and by the time you reach him his eyes have cleared and the sheen is fading from his skin.  The mocking wings vanish into smoke.  As a demon, he wrapped himself in Hell’s power; as a human he has not rested in forty years and he's bone-weary.  But he climbs shakily to his feet and squares his shoulders, and when you try to steady him he shrugs the assistance away.  He meets your eyes and says, “Please.  Just do it.”

“Do you trust me?” you ask, because there’s one last thing you have to do if you’re to take him away from here.  Hell’s mark must be superseded, and you have harrowed Hell to reach him; his soul is yours to claim, if you will, but you won’t unless he allows it.  Too much has been done _to_ him already.  

“Yes.”

“This can’t be undone,” you warn.  You think you can hold them off until more of your comrades arrive, if you have to, but:

“ _Do it_ ,” he says.

You lay one hand on his shoulder and he gasps as your Grace marks him.  You grip him tightly and pull him into your arms, so that he will not fall as you ascend.  You flee with demons close at your back, sounding the withdrawal as you go so that your surviving siblings will know that the task is completed at last.

As you burst through the final barrier, back into the material world, you cry, “ _Dean Winchester is saved_.” 


End file.
